Aug. 15, 1884.] 



KNOWLEDGE 



143 



20th sho enters Leo ; passing across which constellation she descends 

 into Sextans at 5 a.m. on the 21st, only, however, to quit it and 

 re-enter Leo at 7 p.m. on the same day. At 8 o'clock the next 

 evening sho finally leaves Leo for Virp:o, her passage across which 

 occupies until 3 a.m. on the 20t,h. Then she enters Libra, where 

 she continues until -l a.m. on the 28th, crossing at that hour the 

 boundary into the narrow northern strip of Scoi-pio. At 3 o'clock 

 the same afternoon she enters Ophiuchua, and is on the confines of 

 that constellation and Sagittarius when these notes terminate. 



iHi5?rdlnnra. 



The Solar He.\t. — Mr. Slack writes from Ashdown Forest that 

 on Thursday, August 7, he placed a black bulb vacuum thermo- 

 meter in an open box on a layer of cotton-wool, and with the bulb 

 resting on black cotton velvet. Exposure to full sunshine between 

 II and 1 o'clock caused the mercury to rise to 159° Pahr. The 

 shade temperature a few yards off was 78° Fahr., and the difference 

 between wet and dry bulbs of Mason's hygrometer 9° Fahr. The 

 air was remai-kably still. 



The Nation.\l He.\lth Society's Vaccix.wion Pamphlet. — IVe 

 are pleased to find that this admirable circular, the facts of which 

 have been approved of by the Local Government Board, is being 

 distributed energetically in the metropolis. Some such antidote to 

 the unscrupulous and pernicious literature of anti-vaccination was 

 required, and we trust it will be eagerly accepted by the masses, 

 who rfiquire their convictions to be strengthened. We especially 

 tiote the cordial manner in which the Vaccination Officers' Associa- 

 tion has received the circular, looking upon it as they do in the light 

 of strong moral support to them in their duties. Apropos of this 

 subject, we might mention several interesting clinical details which 

 come to us from one of the metropolitan small-pox hospitals. Four 

 children of an anti-vaccinator were attacked with small-pox, three 

 of them being unvaccinated, and one vaccinated after repeated 

 penalties. Two of the unvaccinated died, and the third narrowly 

 escaped with his life, losing an eye in the struggle, whilst the vac- 

 cinated child had an exceedingly mild attack, and was out of bed 

 in a very few days. Again, the family of an anti-vaccinator con- 

 eisted of himself, wife, four children under ten years, and an infant. 

 The wife and infant were the only vaccinated ones, the latter being 

 vaccinated under compulsion, and these escaped small-pox, the 

 other five being admitted to hospital and suffering severely. Lastly, 

 the chairman of a local branch of the Anti-Vaccination Society was 

 lately admitted to hospital and died. — Medical Press and Circular. 



Scientific Pbilaxthropy. — Mr. Lee J. Vance writes in the 

 Popular Science Montlihj : — " The conscious aim of scientific 

 philanthropy is in the fii-st place to deal with the struggle of man 

 with nature — is to help men to help themselves ; secondly, its aim 

 is to regulate the struggle of man with man — is to help men to 

 understand and adapt themselves to the conditions of existence. It 

 is commonly noticed that the individual who succeeds in his 

 struggle with nature is apt to be successful in the good-natured 

 struggle with his fellow-men. As Darwin proves, the intemperate 

 suffer from a high rate of mortality and the extremely profligate 

 leave few offspring. There is economy in this process of elimina- 

 tion whereby the transmission of the industrial vices is restricted, 

 and in the competition of life the degraded members of society, 

 unable to adapt themselves to the conditions imposed by physical and 

 social enrii'onment, succumb before the rest of the population. The 

 scientific idea of benevolence involves, first, the preparation of man 

 to receive intelligently nature's stern discipline — that is, to help 

 him avoid all the evils coming from disobedience of physical 

 agencies, ,ind also to aid him in grasping those great rewards, 

 which, as Huxley says, nature scatters with as lavish a hand as her 

 penalties. The philanthropist will show us that the hereditary 

 vices which the parent establishes for his children and his children's 

 children meet in the long run with certain punishment. If we 

 could believe in the certainty of punishment, says Sir J. Lubbock, 

 temptation, which is at the root of crime, would be cut away, and 

 mankind would become more innocent. The penalties attached to 

 the consumptive, scrofulous, or syphilitic in contracting marriage 

 are sharp and sure — oft-times swift and merciless. Men sin from 

 a mistaken idea of what constitute's to-day's pleasure and to- 

 morrow's pain, and it is not pleasant to be reminded that a great 

 <leal of otu' suffering is due more to ancestral errors than to our 

 own." 



The practice of taking tea with a principal meal, or what is called 

 a *' meat tea," is not to be commended. Tea does not promote 

 digestion of the food in the stomach, and especially is not adapted 

 to accompany meat, but rather bread and farinaceous articles. 

 " Meat teas," as a daily habit, are more likely to create dyspepsia 



than not. The proper time for tea is an hour or two after food, or 

 when the stomach is empty. Although a certain period of rest, 

 after a hearty meal, assists the process of digestion, digestion is 

 impeded by continuous sleep, which is pretty certainly made uneasy 

 and disturbed when the stomach has been recently charged with a 

 full meal. Quiet and refreshing sleep is best secured when the 

 wants of the system have been satisfied by a meal in great measure 

 digested, and when the functions of the stomach need no longer be in 

 full activity, but a long fast and repletion are alike hindrances to 

 sleep. Great caution is needed in sitting down to the chief meal of the 

 day, when both mind and body are exhausted by long-continued 

 labour and abstinence. A rapid, hurried mode of eating should be 

 avoided, especially if the repast commences with some solid dish. 

 There are advantages in commencing with some light food, such 

 as soup, or fish, in small quantities, not calling for the fall 

 powers of the stomach, whilst the gastric jtiice is not in full 

 flow, and when the muscular powers of the stomach partake of 

 the general enfeeblement of the system. It is frequently sup- 

 posed to be undesirable to commence with fluids, and this is 

 probably the case if any large amount be taken, btit not other- 

 wise, in the case of a nutritive fluid like soup, by the gentle 

 stimulus of which the secretions of the stomach are called forth. 

 It is certainly preferable to the glass of sherry or prefatory 

 dram.— i^rom " Food and its Vse in Health." By Sir Kisden 

 Bennett, in Cas.':ell's Book of Health. 



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AND DIBECTED ENVELOPE BE ENCLOSED. 



FALSE PEESPEGTIVE. 



[1359] — I regret the appearance in your columns of the " flat 

 cone" and the flourish about Zetetic Philosophy. My letter on 

 certain errors to be fonnd in most elementarj- books on perspective 

 was not, I can assure you, intended to provoke this sort of thing. 



y 





-+- 



^ 



Let a, 6, c, d, &c., be a row of posts of equal height and equi- 

 distant from one another (ground plan). A, the position of an 

 observer, AB being parallel to af, then the post at a will 

 appear taller than that at 6, the one at b higher than that at c, and 

 so on, and that at /will, of course, seem shortest of all, simply 

 because it is the most distant. For this reason the imaginary 

 straight line upon which the posts stand, and the straight line 

 bounding their summits canyiot, I contend, be parallel. Again, the 

 spaces ab, b c^ c d, Sec, will grow shorter and shorter as they recede 

 from the eye. The geometrical proof of this is very obvious. 



T. E. Jones. 



A COIXCIDEXUE. 



[1360] — Last week I was going in for an examination in Scrip- 

 ture, and, opening my Bible at random, my eye caught the words, 

 " Then are the children free." I was struck by the expression 



